Manufacturing jobs have been declinining as a percentage of total jobs in most OECD countries for several decades, with Ontario being especially hard-hit as a jurisdiction. At the end of the Second World War, manufacturing jobs accounted for 26% of all Canadian jobs; by 2007, this figure had dropped to just 12%. And as I’ve written about elsewhere, the Harper […]
Read moreI was watching CNBC and happened to see this panel about how the number of Americans killed by natural disasters has declined over time. It was also noted that, in early 2010, fewer people died in Chile’s earthquake than in Haiti’s earthquake. The discussion quite reasonably outlined how improvements in emergency preparedness, building codes, and infrastructure help to protect people […]
Read moreMunir Sheikh, former head of Statistics Canada and of tax policy at Finance Canada, has an op-ed in today’s Globe: “A Canada-U.S. tax gap means a Canada-U.S. tax transfer.†As he notes, “any U.S. citizen, resident or company earning income in Canada is subject to U.S. tax, with a credit for Canadian tax paid or accrued.†So, slashing Canada’s corporate […]
Read moreFrom the PEF’s mailbag, here is a guest post by Nick Scott, a recent college graduate and aspiring writer with a passion for environmental conservation. He currently resides in the southeastern United States. The United States and the Business of Pollution In light of the recent environmental tragedy in Japan, there has been a growing awareness of the potential threat […]
Read moreMultinational corporations generally provide more detail to the US Security and Exchange Commission than in their Canadian annual reports. Thank goodness for American disclosure requirements. Along with its 2010 Annual Report, PotashCorp released its Annual Report on Form 10-K (a Security and Exchange Commission filing) on Friday afternoon. The following section is on pages 14 and 15: Royalties and Certain […]
Read moreThe main objection to my argument about the treasury transfer effect is that American companies do not actually repatriate their Canadian profits and pay US corporate tax on them. As The Globe reported: Jack Mintz, director of the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, said the unique tax status of U.S. companies is a moot point because […]
Read moreA few months ago, I tore a strip off Barrie McKenna’s column on internal trade. But today I write to praise his column on corporate taxes: U.S.-based companies . . . are taxed by the Internal Revenue Service on their global income. So any profits they don’t reinvest and try to repatriate are hit with the higher U.S. rate, not […]
Read moreToday, the Global Development and Environment Institute and the Institute for Policy Studies released the following statement signed by more than 250 economists, including a couple of Progressive Economics Forum members: Dear Secretary Clinton, Secretary Geithner, and Ambassador Kirk: We, the undersigned economists, write to alert you to important new developments in the economics literature pertaining to prudential financial regulations, […]
Read moreYesterday, Alex Usher blogged at the Globe and Mail’s web site about the salaries of Canadian university professors. He argues that professors in Canada are now paid better than professors in the United States. He also suggests that, in Canada, “professors are getting world-class pay without producing world-class results.” While I’ve never argued that tenured Canadian university professors are underpaid […]
Read moreThere are some pretty cool charts to play with in today’s release of the interactive version of this biannual report from the Economic Policy Institute.
Read moreSometimes the crudest forms of Marxist analysis of the relationship between class and politics make the most sense. Read this  scorching commentary by Simon Johnson – the former IMF Chief Economist turned ubercritic of the power of the big banks - on the appointment of a senior Wall Street figure, Bill Daley from Morgan Stanley, as President Obama’s new chief […]
Read moreNeil Reynolds’ latest Globe column promotes the myth of costless tax cuts by replicating Kurt Hauser’s month-old Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Hauser’s Law†is the notion that American federal tax revenues have consistently been about 19% of GDP since World War II despite significant changes in statutory tax rates. The implication is that higher tax rates simply prompt more tax […]
Read moreHere is a good piece by Tom Palley in the FT Economists Forum on where the Obama Administration should be moving in terms of economic (though I am not holding my breath until the economic team is dumped) http://blogs.ft.com/economistsforum/2010/09/plan-b-for-obama-on-the-economy/#more-11616
Read more With the US on the brink of a relapse into recession or, at best, a period of very slow growth and rising unemployment, all eyes are on the Federal Reserve. After all, it seems to be the only show in town. The conventional wisdom is that there will be no second round of fiscal stimulus forthcoming from the US […]
Read moreJames Altucher posted an interesting article and video making the case against sending your children to university. I commend him for questioning the credo that everyone should go to university, regardless of interest or aptitude. But I am not totally convinced by his analysis. Altucher gives short shrift to the fact that many good jobs require a university degree, even […]
Read moreGross Domestic Product (GDP) edged up 0.1% in May. Annualized output was $1,231 billion, still below the pre-crisis peak of $1,241 billion in July 2008 but well above the trough of $1,186 billion in May 2009. Canada-US Comparison American GDP figures released this morning indicate an annual growth rate of 2.4% in the second quarter (April – June). Over April […]
Read moreFor the first time in eight months, the number of Employment Insurance (EI) recipients increased in May. We already knew from the Labour Force Survey that unemployment had increased by just over 8,000 in May. It is good news that EI expanded by the same amount because it implies that those who became unemployed that month received benefits. However, it […]
Read moreThere has been a persistent drumbeat in the American business press about corporations accumulating cash. The argument is that, while corporations are making solid profits now, they are not investing in the US for fear of anti-business policies in the future. Obama has allegedly spooked corporate America into hoarding cash rather than investing. To test that story, I looked at […]
Read moreWhenever the stock market falls, CNBC’s Larry Kudlow reliably blames the Obama administration’s allegedly anti-business policies. But when the market was rising on Obama’s watch, Kudlow generally did not talk about it. On tonight’s show, he took a different tack. He repeatedly asserted that the market has recently rallied not only on strong corporate profits, but also because Tim Geithner announced (on […]
Read moreThe notion that tariffs caused the Great Depression has been repeatedly invoked in opposition to allegedly protectionist policies and to press ahead with deregulatory “free trade†deals. Also, the current collapse of international trade is sometimes cited to suggest a rising tide of protectionism today. Yesterday, Paul Krugman had an excellent post debunking the underlying claim that tariffs caused the […]
Read moreArthur Laffer had a boldly titled op-ed in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, “Tax Hikes and the 2011 Economic Collapse.†This piece has been invoked at least once every ten minutes on each subsequent episode of The Kudlow Report. US tax rates will rise in 2011, when the Bush tax cuts expire. Laffer argues that, to avoid these higher tax rates, Americans […]
Read moreAmong TV financial pundits, I enjoy watching James Altucher. I have particularly appreciated his advocacy of no-nonsense quantitative easing by the European Central Bank, as opposed to the half measures unveiled so far. (My viewership has not been systematic enough to form an opinion of his stock tips.) I was recently pleased to discover that he is also a prolific […]
Read moreThis blog’s readers will not be surprised at me questioning Neil Reynolds (although my last post on him was somewhat complimentary.) However, his latest Globe and Mail column was organized around an especially odd claim: The average Canadian household, for example, spends $14,800 (Canadian) a year on personal income taxes, the most expensive purchase – 20 per cent of income […]
Read moreThis evening, the U.S. House of Representatives passed Obama’s healthcare bill. Two months ago, I was the odd man out on a Business News Network panel (watch video). The day after the Massachusetts by-election, I was talking about Democrats redoubling their efforts and being more aggressive in putting forward a progressive agenda. By contrast, one of my co-panellists said, “The […]
Read moreWhen emissions are reported for the US or Canada, there is an accounting convention that restricts the total to emissions released within the borders of that jurisdiction. This means that Canada’s exports of tar sands oil are counted only to the extent that fossil fuels are used in the extraction and processing, not the combustion of the final product in […]
Read moreI was going to comment on Jim’s post, but ended up writing enough to warrant a new post. Jim correctly argues that Buy American provisions are tiny in the grand scheme of Canada-US trade. Similarly, whatever potential procurement preferences Canada bargained away would also have been tiny by this standard. The overall economic effect of last week’s deal will be […]
Read moreThe Economic Policy Institute in the US have released a five point American Jobs Plan which, hopefully, will be a major focus of discussion at the soon to be convened Presidential Jobs Summit. http://www.epi.org/index.php/american_jobs/american_jobs_plan Speaking to a joint CLC/CCPA meeting a couple of weeks ago, EPI President Larry Mishel – who has been invited to the Summit – said that […]
Read moreWhen Jim’s study of the proposed Canada-Korea “free trade†deal provoked a direct and excessive response from the federal government three years ago, he correctly concluded that his study had “hit the pig.†Since I grew up in Saskatchewan and am currently posting from Mississippi, I have at least as much credibility as Jim in invoking farmyard analogies. And it […]
Read moreAmerican opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have tried to use Canadian data to make their case against unionization. This past summer, Jim and I posted some initial responses. This week, York University’s Centre for Research on Work and Society released a collection of articles by Canadian economists (including Jim and me) who support the proposed Act. Our work […]
Read moreUPDATE (November 7): Quoted by The Toronto Star and Canadian Press Today’s release of negative job numbers for October undoes much of the surprisingly strong reported improvement in September. The national unemployment rate is again closer to 9% than to 8%. Canada-US Comparison The US unemployment rate cracking 10% will undoubtedly garner much Canadian attention. While the absolute level of […]
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